Science Lab

The knowledge portal of Leica Microsystems offers scientific research and teaching material on the subjects of microscopy. The content is designed to support beginners, experienced practitioners and scientists alike in their everyday work and experiments. Explore interactive tutorials and application notes, discover the basics of microscopy as well as high-end technologies – become part of the Science Lab community and share your expertise!

Pollen Flower - Taken with a 20x/0.8 objective, area of 6mm² with a depth of 100μm. 15 stitched tiles with 4 colors (DAPI/GFP/TRITC/Cy5) - a total of 13020 images. Video courtesy of James Marr, Leica Microsystems, USA

Developmental Biology Image Gallery

Developmental biology explores the development of complex organisms from the embryo to adulthood to understand in detail the origins of disease. This category of the gallery shows images about…

Images of a brain organoid derived from iPSCs acquired with a THUNDER Imager 3D Cell Culture. The cells were infected with the pAAV-hSyn-EGFP and pLX-hGFAP-mCherry virus. The image is the 36th plane cropped out of a 53 plane Z-stack volume. Shown are both the A) raw widefield image and B) the same image after Large Volume Computation Clearing (LVCC). Neurons are labeled in green and astrocytes in red.

“Brains-In-A-Dish” from Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells (iPSCs)

This article discusses the benefits of using the THUNDER technology for imaging inside 3D human cortical brain organoids. These organoids are derived from human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs)…

Spheroid shown here as a maximum projection of the raw widefield image data (left) and THUNDER image after Instant Computational Clearing (right). The images are derived from approximately 60 µm Z stacks. Different stains (alpha actin and vimentin) are used to help identify the various cell types. Images courtesy of Sandra Grijalva, Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering, Georgia Tech and Emory University, Atlanta, USA.

Developing Heart Pacemaker Cells from Cardiac Spheroids

During the last decade, 3D cell culture has been established as a more realistic model compared to classical 2D culture systems. Cells can develop into miniature 3D objects, so called spheroids, which…

Electroporated nerve cells (green), specific neuronal markers (magenta) and cell nuclei (white), computational cleared.

Into the Third Dimension with "Wow Effect"- Observe Cells in 3D and Real-Time

Life is fast, especially for a cell. As a rule, cells should be examined under physiological conditions which are as close as possible to their natural environment. New technologies offer tremendous…

Lung organoid taken at the "liquid-air interface" with a THUNDER Imager 3D Cell Culture. The cells originate from transgenic mice, so that the different fluorescence represents the degree of differentiation of the respective cell (superposition). The image acquisition was performed on day 21 after the start of the culture. Reference: P. Kanrai, MPI-HLR Bad Nauheim.

Observing 3D Cell Cultures During Development

3D cell cultures, such as organoids and spheroids, give insights into cells and their interactions with their microenvironment. These 3D cell cultures are playing an increasingly important role for…

Dividing fission yeast S. pombe stained with two markers against spindle pole bodies (Pcp1-GFP, green) and cytokinesis ring (Rlc1-mCherry; red).

Studying Cell Division

Cell division is a biological process during which all cellular components must be distributed among the daughter cells. The division process requires firm coordination for success. Microscopy is…

Images of the scaffold composed of fluorescent fibers: Left: raw widefield image. Right: THUNDER image with LVVC. Both images are maximal projections of a z stack of 55 images (total height of 130 µm). Images courtesy of Mollie Smoak, Department of Bioengineering, Rice University, Houston, TX, USA

Finding new Scaffolds for Tissue Engineering

Tissue engineers use biomaterials for a variety of applications from drug delivery to supporting the regeneration of damaged or lost tissues to creating in vitro disease models. Scaffold architecture…

Mouse kidney section with Alexa Fluor™ 488 WGA, Alexa Fluor™ 568 Phalloidin, and DAPI. Sample is a FluoCells™ prepared slide #3 from Thermo Fisher Scientific, Waltham, MA, USA. Images courtesy of Dr. Reyna Martinez – De Luna, Upstate Medical University, Department of Ophthalmology.

The Power of Pairing Adaptive Deconvolution with Computational Clearing

Learn how deconvolution allows you to overcome losses in image resolution and contrast in widefield fluorescence microscopy due to the wave nature of light and the diffraction of light by optical…

Improvement of Imaging Techniques to Understand Organelle Membrane Cell Dynamics

Understanding cell functions in normal and tumorous tissue is a key factor in advancing research of potential treatment strategies and understanding why some treatments might fail. Single-cell…